X-Men: Shadowalker
by TimeLordSPARTAN
Summary: You've probably never heard of me. Once, I was known as Jack Matthews. Now, I go by another name. I am Shadowalker. And this is my story.
1. I Never Liked Schools

_You've probably never heard of me._

_Once, I was known as Jack Matthews. Now, I go by another name._

_I am the Shadowalker._

_And this is my story._

* * *

I've never really liked schools. I've been to so many, and they all seem the same. Timetables and subjects and useless ideas that are outdated by the next year. Oh, and don't forget the bullies.

Bullies. Every school has at least one, some stupid jock with more muscles than they have brain cells to use them. I've had the time to study them, during classes where they taught us useless ideas that are outdated by the next year, during our ridiculously short breaks, and I've come to a conclusion: somewhere, someone makes their life hell, too. The bullies move and work like carnivores around the herbivores that are the rest of us. They prey on the young, on the weak, on the loners. It's a pity, then, that I'm a loner.

* * *

It was a normal school day, other than the sunny sky in the midst of a series of storms, when it happened. I was closing my locker, spinning the combination lock to secure it, when along came the school bully. He was your average jock guy, massive muscles and a tiny brain. The best insult he could come up with was "hey, dipshit."

"Hey, dipshit," he said. Told you.

"Greetings, steroid-fed, pea-brained mountain of bodily tissue," I replied. Never a good idea to use smart words on a bully, but he had pain on his agenda from the moment he set eyes on me. Always the same guy. I don't even know his name.

Becore the bully could answer, a call came over the loudspeaker.

"Could Jack Matthews please report to the principal's office immediately." The bully sneered. He slowly backed away and headed down the hall. Oh, wait, did I forget to introduce myself? I'm the school punching bag.

I walked briskly down the hallway, wondering what the principal wanted. Was it not enough that, despite not listening in class, I was a straight-A student? Or perhaps it was nothing to do with my grades... Perhaps it was more to do with that SR-71 which had landed near the school...

I opened the door to the principal's office slowly, peeking inside. Yup, this was not my grades. All I could see through the door was a bald man in a wheelchair. I slowly shut the door again, leaning against it, wondering what to do.

"You could try coming inside."

I looked around sharply, trying to find the source of the voice. It sounded as if the person were right next to me, yet there was no one there. I pressed my ear against the door, listening to what the bald man was telling the principal.

"He's right outside, you know. No, don't get up, let him choose to come in if he wants to."

I frowned. This man knew exactly where I was, yet he hadn't seen me. He also seemed to understand that I wanted my entry into the room to be my own decision. Who was he?

Against my own better judgement, I pushed open the door and stepped inside.

"Ah, Jack, good of you to join us," the bald man greeted me pleasantly enough. The principal looked at me, his gaze hard.

"I recognize you!" I exclaimed. I had had a feeling that I at least knew of him, if not knew him personally. "I've seen you on TV! You're Professor Charles Xavier!" The bald man inclined his head, seeming surprised that I knew of him.

"But then..." I began. He raised his eyebrows expectantly.

"That SR-71 outside..." I continued.

"My X-Men are waiting there, yes." I was confused, surely the X-Men had nothing to do with me?

As if he'd read my mind, which I later realized he probably had, he continued.

"We are here for one simple reason: you." He raised his hand to stall my questions. "We haven't much time, and this will be much faster as a monologue." I nodded.

"Firstly, yes, you are a mutant. Your powers have not yet manifested fully, but they will the next time you are severely stressed. Your powers, as we have managed to ascertain, are useful to opponents of the X-Men, namely Magneto and Weapon X. Therefore, I have come here in person to invite you to join me and hundreds like yourself at my school for the gifted - and when I say 'gifted' I mean 'gifted with mutant abilities.' We haven't much time before Magneto and his Brotherhood get here, so if you accept we will have to move now."

I blinked. Xavier hadn't taken so much as a breath through that entire statement.

"Okay, I'll go with you. Magneto isn't the nicest person, from what's said on the news, so if you're against him I'm with you." Xavier smiled.

"Let's go then." He thumbed the controls for his wheelchair and practically shot out of the door. I was after him in a moment, jogging to keep up. We turned together through twisting corridors and past groups of people avoiding class. Everyone who saw us stared for awhile before returning to their original conversations. Everyone except one. The bully.

"Be careful, Jack," Xavier said, sensing the bully.

"DIPSHIT!" The bully shouted, "I'M COMING TO GET YOU!"

Really? He _still _couldn't think of a good insult? Man that was cliche.

Finally, Xavier and I burst out of the front doors and shot toward the waiting stealth plane. The boarding ramp opened to allow us in, and a white-haired woman dressed in black beckoned to us.

"Come on, come on! Scott's firing up the jets, we have to go!" I recognised her, and almost stopped in my tracks before sprinting toward the jet, quickly outpacing Xavier's chair. As he reached the ramp I was buckling my seatbelt. As he rolled into place and locked his chair in, the plane was taking off. I looked out of the window, watching as the Brotherhood of Mutants destroyed the school searching for me.


	2. Alchemist

_Sometimes, I ask myself whether all that I have done has any value. _

_Does anything we do have value?_

_For all of our powers, mutants are just like humans, thinking we can change the face of the universe, when all we are is but a tiny speck spinning around an immense ball of gas, itself but one of billions like it in one of billions of swirling clouds of stars. And in all of this universe, we have the nerve to think we are special. All we can do is affect our one little world._

_And yet we still try to change the universe._

* * *

I glanced at the one other passenger on the Blackbird. He was a very odd-looking person. His hair was black, as was everything he was wearing. His pale, almost white skin contrasted starkly with his bright, purple eyes. He held a piece of metal in his hands, and as I watched in amazement he passed one of his hands over it, turning it from a lump of steel into what looked like a nugget of gold.

"Hi," I said simply, curious as to who he was. I'd never seen him on the news before, so he couldn't be an X-Man, plus he only looked a year or two older than me - way too young to be an X-Man.

He started when I spoke, and a glowing samurai sword appeared in his free hand. He looked up at me before relaxing slightly, still holding the samurai sword.

"Hi," he replied cautiously.

"Did they just pick you up too?" I asked, trying to sound as if I didn't care that he was holding a lethal, glowing weapon.

"Yeah," he replied.

"What's your name?" I asked, feeling as if I was going to get some kind of cryptic, meaningless answer.

"John. John Urman."

"Nice to meet you, John. I'm Jack Matthews." The samurai sword faded, and he extended the hand that had held it. I shook his hand.

"I don't know if the teachers at whatever school we're going to will allow this, but I've already thought up a codename for myself," John told me as he released my hand. Xavier glanced over at us.

"The 'teachers' are the X-Men, and we encourage every student to come up with a codename. It saves a lot of time, and coming up with tailor-made codenames for every student is quite a hassle. Sometimes, we even refer to students by their codenames, simply because it's easier than remembering their real names."

John looked pleased.

"Well, my power basically let's me turn any substance into any other substance, allowing for mass, I guess, so I thought, maybe, my codename should be 'Alchemist.'"

"It fits you, I think," I told him. He grinned back at me.

"What about you, Jack? What's your special power?"

"Quite honestly, I don't have one. Not yet." He glanced at the Professor, seeming confused.

"Your power is there, Jack. You just need to find the trigger. That will most likely only happen when you are stressed, but it has been known to happen at other times as well."

* * *

The Blackbird touched down outside an enormous mansion. John and I slowly walked down the boarding ramp, taking in the amount of sheer _space_ the property had.

"Welcome," Xavier said, rolling down the ramp behind us, " to Xavier's Academy for the Gifted." Storm followed us down the ramp, quickly taking the lead.

"Follow me," she told us, walking quickly to the mansion, "I'll take you to your classmates."

* * *

_The following account is based off of the accounts I later gathered from my classmates, and is therefore from a third person point of view to show the reactions of all assembled instead of just a single person._

The room went silent as the two boys were ushered in by Storm.

"Jack, John, meet the New Mutants. New Mutants, this is Jack," she indicated the younger one, who was wearing the uniform of the school he had just left, "and John," she finished, indicating the older one. "They will be joining you for their time at our school, so I'll let you get acquainted with one another."

She closed the door behind the boys. Illyana stared suspiciously at Jack, before turning to John.

"Don't I know you?" she asked, narrowing her eyes. John did a double take, staring at her.

"Demon-fighting-magic-girl?" he asked.

"John Urman. I knew it was you!" she ran up to him, embracing him. "Do you still have your soul-katana?" He flexed his hand, causing a glowing samurai sword to appear.

"Haven't fought any demons with it, but it did have a use later on."

"What kind of use?" Illyana asked as the others began to shake themselves out of their stunned silence.

"I'd rather not talk about it-"

"John Urman, huh? I remember Illyana mentioned you once." Alex Summers looked John up and down, concluding that he had seen more than his fair share of bloodshed and death in his life.

"Alex Summers. You can call me Havok." John shook his hand as Sam Guthrie advanced on Jack.

"Hi, I'm Sam Guthrie. Call me Cannonball." Jack seemed slightly nervous, as if he felt he shouldn't be here. John, on the other hand, was confident, but blunt with his remarks. He clearly hadn't been around people much.

* * *

"Hi," the short-haired redhead said. She seemed slightly nervous. "I'm Rahne. My codename's Wolfsbane."

"Why Wolfsbane?" I asked.

"Because I turn into a wolf," she replied, as if it should be obvious. "What's your codename?"

"I don't have one," I told her.

"Well, then, what's your power?"

"No idea. Hasn't shown up yet."

"Really? Then why did the Professor say that you were very important?"

"He said that?"

"Yes."

The news unsettled me. Sure the Brotherhood wanted me. Sure they destroyed a school trying to find me. But very important? Surely that was going a little bit far.

Wasn't it?


	3. The Shadowalker Rises

_The Professor once told me, my power didn't come as a surprise to him. I had always had darkness in my soul. He just hadn't mentioned it._

* * *

"So, Jack," Illyana began, "what do you think your power will be?" We were seated next to each other, eating breakfast. I kept shifting uncomfortably, which I think she had picked up on. The mansion seemed just too darn _big_, which made me wonder why there were only six students here.

"Quite honestly, I have no idea. I can't even come up with a better codename at the moment than powerless." At that very moment, there was a loud noise from outside. No one took any notice except Rahne, who hurried over to a window to check it out.

"Illyana..." she began.

"What is it?" Illyana replied, moving over to stand behind Rahne. A loud roar emanated from outside. John sat bolt upright.

"I know that roar..." Illyana turned to face him.

"John, it's Ignus. The demon who hunted you is back from Limbo." His katana appeared in his hand.

"Last time he was here, you were the only one with a soulsword. Now I've got one too. Let's get him!"

All the adults were away, so the only ones who could deal with the demon were the new mutants.

"Rahne, stay with Jack. Who knows what else might come through, and if something goes for Jack, he'll need your help." Rahne nodded as the rest of the New Mutants sprang into action. Illyana and John sprinted toward the demon as Sam used himself as a human missile. Havok stayed at the back, hitting the demon with his plasma blasts. Ignus seemed unaffected, both by the plasma and the human missile. He swung his immense blade, which Illyana would later tell me was a strange weapon for a demon anyway, at John. A fiery shockwave emanated from the edge of the blade, extending the creature's reach and throwing John to the ground. Before he could get up, the massive demon was holding him down with its foot.

I barely heard Rahne shout my name as I ran forward. I didn't notice my fingertips turn black as I closed on the demon. I didn't even notice when the blackness spread over my entire body and my eyes became pure white, glowing like flashlights. All I could see was the massive sword of the demon, hurtling down to cleave John in two as Illyana hacked uselessly at the creature's foot. I found myself standing over John with one arm upraised, thinking I could stop the blade. Then, the sword stopped falling. I felt an intense, burning pain and I cried out as the sword became covered in thin, black cracks. The blackness covering my body faded as I collapsed to my knees, clenching my hand to try to stop the blood from pouring out of the jagged cut as the demon's sword shattered above my head.

The demon roared in frustration as John got up.

_"Shadowalker..."_ the demon growled. The battle stood still as everyone turned to look at me. Sam even crashed into the ground because he wasn't looking where he was going

_"You may have won this time, Shadowalker, but my blade will haunt you for the rest of your days!"_ With that, the demon jumped a metre or so into the air, curled into a ball and vanished in a fiery explosion.

"Damnit!" I heard John shout, sounding as if he were far away. Rahne finally caught up with me as I tried to stand up.

"Hey, hey, hey, you shouldn't be getting up. You're clearly very weak." I ignored her and almost fell face-first into the grass before she caught me.

"We need to get Jack inside, now!" She sounded so distant, so faint.

As the darkness closed in around me, her face was the last thing I saw.

* * *

According to everyone, I slept for two to three weeks, and in all that time there was always someone watching me, whether it was Rahne (almost all the time) or Illyana (mostly to let Rahne get some sleep), someone was watching. To me, it seemed like I had blacked out for only a moment. The first thing I saw was Rahne, her eyes wide with concern.

"He's awake!" She shouted down the hall. Of course, it was the middle of the night, but all of the New Mutants, John included, hurried down to my bedside. How touching. My first question was whether anyone else was hurt.

"No lasting damage. Sam broke his nose when he crashed, but that was his own stupid fault."

Then I asked what had happened.

"What do you remember?" Rahne asked tentatively.

"The last thing I remember was getting up with the intention of running in to help." Illyana laughed darkly.

"You certainly helped. You caught Ignus's sword on its edge with one hand, and it shattered into hundreds of tiny pieces - they're still trying to find all the parts so no-one stands on them. Then the demon called you shadowalker and disappeared."

"Shadowalker," John mused, "A fitting name for such a power."

"Power?" John nodded. "What power?"

Illyana raised an eyebrow.

"You don't remember?"

"I already told you, the last thing I remember is standing up."

"You become a shadow-person. I reckon, with practice, you could use such a power for hiding, maybe even as a means of transport through shadows."

I glanced down at my right hand as it stung. Right across the palm was an ugly scar, resembling a jagged grin. Something told me it was permanent.

"That's where you caught the demon's blade," Illyana told me. "That scar will be there for the rest of your life, yet it is not a bad thing. That scar symbolises your first victory as a New Mutant." I raised an eyebrow.

"At what point did I become a New Mutant?"

"At the point where you were willing to possibly get killed to save another person's life."


End file.
